


Fantastic, Love

by neinbleps



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Enthusiastic Consent, Foreplay, Multi, Oral Sex, is important, they! love! each other!, tm9 au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-26 17:13:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17750096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neinbleps/pseuds/neinbleps
Summary: Their copying is quiet but for the scratching of pens and the occasional soft hum from Caleb; every now and then, just lightly, Astrid’s hand would fall away from her work and brush against Caleb’s hair, then return to the surface of her desk.  Or it would stay there, running his freshly-washed hair through her fingers and letting her nails run over his head in long gentle strokes.





	Fantastic, Love

Three globules of light float in a dim, gentle ring around a small room occupied by Caleb, Astrid, and Eodwulf.  The three of them don’t always share one, but they had new scrolls to copy, and when all was said and done the mighty nein had a general stance that it was best to let the wizards study and not keep everyone else up.

There’s still only the one desk.

Astrid claims it first, turning Caleb’s attention to Eodwulf at last minute so she can hop the desk and half knock the chair over before finding her balance in it.

All things considered, it’s not much of a loss.  She spreads her book and supplies across the desk, Eodwulf takes his to the bed (and swears that if he gets ink on the sheets Astrid has to pay for them), and Caleb steals one of the pillows and sets himself down on the ground leaning against the desk.

Their process goes like this:  Caleb reads a scroll, then hands it to Astrid, who copies it once, and tosses it to Eodwulf, who copies it and tosses it back to Caleb to reference for his own copying.  It keeps them quiet and occupied for a few hours, broken up only by one of them re-casting the cantrip keeping their space lit.

The room is warm, and peaceful, and they had each laid down their precautions before they left and after they returned to it.  As close to safe as anywhere was, with backup in easy reach should they need it.

Their copying is quiet but for the scratching of pens and the occasional soft hum from Caleb; every now and then, just lightly, Astrid’s hand would fall away from her work and brush against Caleb’s hair, then return to the surface of her desk.  Or it would stay there, running his freshly-washed hair through her fingers and letting her nails run over his head in long gentle strokes.

It’s distracting, but not in a way he minds, especially after he’s finished reading the new scrolls and has gone back to refreshing his memory on spells in his own book.  In this position, any spells copied would be clumsy at best anyway, and he’s not prepared to lean away from the occasional touches to do so.

But the soothing motions do make his mind drift.  His crystal sharp thoughts become cloudy and soft, and his head tilts slowly back to follow her hand as it starts to pull away.  He hears an amused noise from above, but can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed by it.  Not as he begins to lightly doze, thoughts drifting...

_A hand smooths down the curve of his back and he is helpless, melting into the sparkling warmth of touch over the lines left by her nails.  “I’ve given you wings,” says Astrid, and he can hear the smile in her voice._

_He tilts his head back to look at her and tilts too far, topples grinning into her lap.  “You always did make me fly,” he says, still kiss-drunk and giddy._

The hand in his hair has moved with the tilt of his head, her knuckles now brushing over his cheek and jaw.  His head turns again, chasing the tips of her fingers until he can brush his lips against them.  Eyes closed, the sound of a quiet huff of laughter from above still makes him smile...

_His cheek is warm where it rests against Eodwulf’s thigh, pleased and sleepy.  It’s a cool night, but by configuring themselves into one small bed, nobody is cold._

_Fingertips tilt his chin up, and it takes him a moment of slow blinking to follow the direction.  He’s being smiled at, so fond and gentle that it takes his breath away._

The hand against his face goes back to playing with his hair, then gently tracing over his nose and cheekbones and chin.  He presses a kiss to her palm, then carefully raises a hand to catch hers.  She lets it, twining their fingers together and squeezing gently.  The sounds of pens haven’t stopped.

_He sits against the head of their bed, Astrid’s head in his lap while he brushes the hair away from her face.  She doesn’t always like having it played with, but the motions are grounding now as tension slowly releases through her body.  Eodwulf comes into his view; pressing a kiss to her shoulder then her cheek then flopping onto his side._

_The two of them radiate contentment and he can’t imagine a better place to be, than to sit by their warmth and feel himself melt._

He kisses her knuckles, each one in turn, still too fuzzy to be embarrassed by open attention in this barely lit room.

The pen stops.  There’s a noise of curiosity above him, and when his eyes flick up, they catch the gaze of Eodwulf first--propped up on his elbows, chin in his hands, watching the two of them, his gaze all sharp and wondering.  It takes Caleb a second to pull his attention away and look the rest of the way up.

When he meets Astrid’s eyes, her thumb traces over his lips until he licks it, just to poke fun at her.  Her eyebrows go up, still more amused than anything else.  He pulls it into his mouth and runs his tongue over the pad of it, still watching her watch him.

“What’re you thinking about?”  She asks, and he knows it’s his fault for putting that tone in her voice in the first place, but it still makes him shiver.

He releases her thumb but kisses her hand again before saying “You.”  He looks up at her again, then without moving his head looks back at Eodwulf on the bed, then back up at her.  “Both of you.”

Astrid also glances over, then shakes her head.  She’s smiling as she wipes her thumb off on his cheek.  “I’m still working.  Try not to think so loudly for a bit.”

She goes back to petting his hair.  Glancing at Eodwulf, he finds no sympathy on that front, and is content enough to try and go back to his reading.

The fingers playing in his hair are light enough that he gets a few pages in--he gave up on spellwork and swapped to the book Jester had given him the day before, something about forest trysts, he hadn’t figure out who the main character was supposed to be yet--without starting to doze again, merely drifting in a content haze.

He’s pulled away from that by fingertips suddenly swapping to nails, drawing short lines from the back of his neck up into his hair, startling an inhale from him.  Her hand pauses, then goes back to the soft petting, and he realizes with sudden clarity that this is a game.

This acknowledged, he nods a little, and settles harder into his seat.  He’s yet to give into a game without a fight, and the gentle atmosphere of the room does nothing to temper that.

His reading does not go as quickly as usual.  He’s sure Astrid notices, judging by her vaguely smug expression when she finally tugs on his hair in a way that encourages him to look up.  “Bed.”  She says, bumping her knuckles against his chin.

Astrid stands, stretches, and begins carefully packing up her supplies.  Across the room, Eodwulf begins doing the same, and Caleb follows suit; making sure his books are in his coat by his bag and his shoes are next to that.  Beau had Frumpkin.  The three of them had already put up their precautions.  Everything was as it should be.

Not quite everything.

By the time he’s facing the bed, Eodwulf has pulled the covers down and rearranged himself. When he sits down, he’s pulled further in, until he’s leaning against Eodwulf’s chest.  There’s a new hand in his hair, one he trusts just as much as the last, but there’s no pretense of sleepiness in it now.

“I apologize, were we boring you?”  Caleb asks, trying to let himself ease back into familiar comfort.

Eodwulf makes a soft negative noise, kissing his forehead.  “Bored?  Never.  A bit left out?  Maybe.”  His tone is teasing and emphasized by a kiss under Caleb’s ear.  While there, he continues, whispering; “Want to help me make Astrid cry?”

Caleb’s eyebrows go up, but he doesn’t turn to look, only shifting closer so he can kiss Eodwulf’s neck.  “She was teasing you too?”  He asks, thinking back.  “Message?”

“Mhm.  Trying to make me guess what you were thinking about.”  His other hand falls onto the small of Caleb’s back, rubbing there gently.

“I could just tell you,” he offers, shifting his hands to lay them on Eodwulf’s sides.

“‘Course not.  That’s not the point.”  Eodwulf releases Caleb’s hair, catching his jaw instead so he can kiss him directly.

They lose themselves to the slow build until Astrid makes her presence known by dropping down next to them.  The bed isn’t so big or small that it jostles them, but they give each other the kind of long look before facing her that always gives her a little shiver of warmth.

There’s rarely a downside to teasing the two of them.  Sometimes, depending on the mood of the day and how and for how long, it means that later they’ll roll over easily, begging her to finish what she started, or to let them do it.  Sometimes it means they pin her down or lift her up and tease her back until any trace of ire melts out of her.  By that look, it’s going to be the second.

“What are you two talking about over here?”  She asks, nudging their sides.

Caleb sits up so he can lean over and kiss her cheek.  “You, of course.” He says, and his voice is far too soft for her heart to take.

Astrid pushes on his face until he falls back against the bed again, and she twists to look at Eodwulf, who has sat up and shifted over to wrap an arm around her waist.  “Good things?”

Eodwulf bites her ear to make her wiggle, then smiles against her shoulder.  “Only the best, of course.”

A new game. On this end, it’s one she’s not quite as good at, not as smooth at as she’d like to be, in ways that are sometimes unsettling. 

Two different hands, one on each of hers, squeeze gently to get her attention.

“All good?”  A murmur near her ear.  Check in.  Control.  Active or passive, the reins are hers.

Astrid laughs, turning to kiss him.  “Yes.”  Then, quieter, “thank you.”

Eodwulf nods, then carefully folds his legs and stretches out again so Astrid sits leaning back against him.  “Pardon me, your majesty; your boys would like to have a word with you.”

She snorts, reaching one hand back to tangle in Eodwulf’s hair and lifting the other one to beckon Caleb forward.  “Speak then,” she says, and her voice is only half as imperious as she would like; her breath all but stolen by the glance Caleb gives her when he lets his cheek rest against her palm.

“You,” he says, catching her hand in his.  “Are hereby charged,” he kisses her wrist, then her forearm. “With inciting arousal,” he ignores her quiet laugh in favor of kissing the inside of her elbow.  “And furthermore...”  He skips up then, kissing her shoulder.  “Disturbing the peaceful study hours.”  Caleb grins at her, uncertainty still keeping his shoulders stiff, but looking quietly pleased all the same.  “How do you plead?”

“Impatient.”  She answers, tugging him closer so she can kiss him again.

Eodwulf makes a tsking noise behind her, and she twitches slightly when his hands find their way under her shirt, trailing cold fingers over her stomach. ****“I thought boys were supposed to be warm,” she says, pulling away from Caleb to make a face at him.

“It’s chilly,” is all the defense she gets before she’s distracted again.

Unable to sit back, Caleb had leaned forward and begun biting small marks into the soft skin under her ear and along her throat.  Tiny things, each almost faded by the time he moved on to the next, dotted alongside the remains of older ones.

Caleb and Eodwulf trade back and forth ****; Caleb finishes his line down and shifts up to kiss her, hands gripping her hips for stability.  Meanwhile, Eodwulf works his way up, taking his time making her squirm, his hands staying put until they warm up and can run up and over her breasts without making her shiver unpleasantly.

When there are multiple lines of scattered bruises running across her neck and she’s biting her hand to keep from gasping, Eodwulf and Caleb pause to grin at then kiss each other over her shoulder.  Taking advantage of the break, Astrid wiggles her way a little closer against Eodwulf and gasps “When you two kill me I am going to haunt the  _fuck_  out of you.”

They pull away, laughing, then--one by one, the globes of light go out.

 ****As Eodwulf’s eyes adjust, he watches his humans blink in the sudden darkness, and drops his head to rest against Astrid’s shoulder, shaking with breathless giggles.  “We are--we are properly intimidated, my queen.”

Caleb shakes his head and braces a hand on Astrid’s shoulder to sit up, flames dancing around his fingertips.  Astrid tilts her head up, taking advantage of Eodwulf’s distraction to bite his throat.

“Ow! Hey! Are you royalty or a vampire?”  He hisses, jumping slightly but trapped under their combined weight.

“Neither,” Caleb shoots back, leaning over to light the candle next to the bed.  “Don’t knock that over.”  The magical flame extinguishes, but Eodwulf would swear the hand that cups under his jaw is still warm.  “It’s what you get for being rude.”  He says, dropping a quick kiss to his lips anyway.

 

A low sound leaves Eodwulf’s throat, but Caleb pulls away before he can do anything about it, turning his attention back to Astrid.  “Interruptions aside; permission to go back to doting on you, your majesty?”

Astrid makes a face at him and tugs on his shirt.  “ _Yes_ , get back down here.  Take this off first.”

Caleb sticks his tongue out back at her, and removes the offending garment, leaving his upper half covered only by the wraps going down his forearms.  He spreads his hands, face red as he tries to stand firm under two gazes and not lose himself to self-consciousness.  “Better?”

 

He holds his breath while she looks him over, waiting until she nods to relax again.

Permission given, he kisses each of them once more, lingering a little longer when Astrid traps him with a hand on the back of his neck and teeth catching his lips.  He has to take a breath when she releases him, but is smiling as he shifts backwards.

All three of them are quiet for some moments as Eodwulf helps slide Astrid’s top up and off, the chill driven off by his arms and, for a short time, Caleb’s mouth.  Their third kisses and bites his way across her collarbones, pausing until her breath starts to slow again before moving down, leaving a trail of small marks down to and over one breast.

It’s never been any sort of hardship for him to pile affection and attention on his partners.  He is patient and thorough and those traits get him far some nights.  Tonight, Astrid lets him know exactly when she’s had enough of them.

“B--Caleb.  Please.”  She says, voice strained as the hand in his hair goes tight, pushing him down.  The trip up and the please are rewarding in their own ways, different from the composure she tries to maintain.  He goes down, but raises his eyebrows at her on the way.  She doesn’t seem to notice; her eyes are closed and she was already flushed from cheeks to throat.

 

There’s a brief pause; Eodwulf has to move his legs, and they work together to put a pillow under Astrid’s hips.  Between the three of them, he’s quickly settled again.  

Eodwulf’s hands take over the gentle but persistent fondling of her breasts, his fingertips circling and pinching nipples still damp from Caleb’s mouth, making her wiggle and arch happily.

Caleb keeps moving, sliding her pants down and off and biting deeper marks into the insides of her thighs.  Admittedly, some of the delay is for the way she pulls at his hair, as he enjoys the zings of heat sent to his core.  But most of it is for the gasps of wanting, the way her hips roll up into nothing.

 

He moves on only when the tugging stops and becomes firm pressure.  “Caleb.”  Bitten-off, breathy.  “Don’t be rude.”  A command.

“I was being polite.”  He returns, laying his words before her as an offering, one he knows she won’t take.  True to form, she doesn’t reply, so he presses a last kiss to her damp curls.

His hand moves up from the bed to gently spread her outer lips; even worked up and slick like this, her clit can be hard to find.  As with everything else, he takes his time.  His presses his tongue flat to her, drags it up until it catches, and curls the tip of it to push against what he’s found.

 

Her hips jerk, making him smile.  He dives back in, spreading slick and spit over her long inner lips and the fingers holding her open until there’s no drag at all when two of them slide up and into her.  The sound she makes is muffled, and he looks up to see the way she’s twisted to kiss Eodwulf, then broken away, breathing heavily against his shoulder.  He pulls his fingers slowly out again, and, slides them back in just to watch her bite her lip and tip her head back.

He shakes off his distraction, sets himself back to work.  His tongue alternates slow pressure and flicking circles, playing with what sends her twitching around him.  At this angle, there’s only so much his fingers can do, but he’d gotten aches for dumber things than Astrid’s pleasure.  Between the quick rhythm of his fingers inside her and the persistent slide of his tongue, it’s not long before her long moans and high squeaks rise in pitch and frequency, even bitten off and muffled as they are.  (Their room is safe, maybe, but it’s not terribly private all the same.)

He slows, waiting for her to relax the pressure against his head before he sits up.  She does, but only a little, so he stretches his jaw and licks his lips and begins placing little damp kisses on her hip. 

 

After another moment she releases him, and he sits up to accommodate the way she stretches her whole body.  When she settles, she grins at him, and reaches out to cup his face, pulling him into a long kiss.

When her hands starts to drift, Eodwulf intervenes, catching them in his and pressing their hands to her stomach.  “A thousand pardons and everything, but nobody said you were done,” he says.  “In fact, if you could...”

He sits up, nudging her off of him, and she makes a face at him.  “Since when--oh.”

In the time between Astrid rolling off of him and sitting back up, he had stripped his shirt and settled back on the bed, holding his hands back out to her.  “Lady’s choice?”

 

Astrid laughs at him, rubbing her face for a moment and shaking her head.  “Really, Wulf?  You want me to sit on your face after this asshole spent two hours working me up?”

“It was not--”

“Don’t tell me how long it actually was, Caleb.  I can’t believe you can still do that.”

He just shrugs, then moves a pillow aside so he can settle above Eodwulf’s head.  “I cannot turn it off.  But I will try to support you, if you wish.”

Astrid looks at Caleb, then back down at Eodwulf, who’s still grinning at her, then shakes her head again and grumbles “It turns me off.”  She ignores their quiet laughter in favor of swinging herself up and over Eodwulf’s shoulders.  “You are on a time limit:  I have no qualms about breaking your nose if my legs give out.”

“I’ve died in worse ways,” Eodwulf says cheerfully, right before he opens his mouth and licks a long stripe up the wet length of her.

 

She tilts forward, laughter cut off by the sudden glide of pressure, letting Caleb take some of her weight off her own legs and Eodwulf’s arms.

Then spend long minutes locked like that, a careful balancing act between three people with very low strength priority.  Astrid--seemingly determined to drag somebody down into a gasping mess with her--muffles her noises by biting indecently dark marks into Caleb’s shoulders and neck.  For his part, Caleb whines and squeezes her hips and does his best to keep them both upright.

Eodwulf ends up being the one to tap her leg, encouraging the other two to help her lift away from his face.  He’s still grinning, face flushed, but Astrid’s weight shifts with his chest as he breathes.  “I know I said there are worse ways to go, but I don’t think you two are done with me yet.”

“I’m  _definitely_  not,” Astrid says, wiggling and smiling.  She pushes her hair out of her face then reaches down to do the same for him.  “Alright down there?”

He laughs, still a little breathless, and kisses her leg.  “Fantastic, love.  Good?”

“Yeah,” she hums, rolling her hips a little, and Eodwulf sticks his tongue out at her before guiding her back again.

Their balancing act continues, a little steadier for the break, until Astrid starts shaking again, leaning her forehead against Caleb’s damp shoulder and moaning openly into the air.  The other two hold her a little tighter, supporting her as she comes apart.

When her breathing starts to slow, Eodwulf lets himself relax against the bed again.  He alternates between kissing the marks Caleb left on her thighs and licking her clean while she whines at the tint of overstimulation rocking through her.  When he starts to pull away, she puts a hand down to push his head back against the bed.

“You said you were going to make me cry,” she says, grinning with her teeth.

Caleb snorts and kisses her forehead.  “Your perception is too high.”

Eodwulf looks at her for a long moment, then shrugs and kisses her shaking knee.  “You sure you don’t want to lay down again?  I’ll stay right here if you want.”

 

Astrid makes a face at Caleb, who shrugs, then looks at Eodwulf and makes a face at him too.  “You two are terrible at this punishment thing.”

Both of them raise their eyebrows at her.  

“Do you  _want_  to be punished?”  Caleb asks, sitting up as she braces more of her weight on him then drops to the side.

“Not really.”  She admits, resting her cheek on his thigh while Eodwulf sits up and stretches. “...You’re both still dressed.”

 

“Well, we were busy,” Eodwulf says, leaning over to kiss her nose.  “Where would you like us?”

Astrid twists a little, rubbing her legs together and contemplating.  “Under the covers and naked.”  She says, nodding and sitting up.

Eodwulf laughs, and begins shucking his own clothes.  “That we can do.”

 

The three of them arrange themselves under the blankets, the candle put out and the room dark.  With Astrid in the middle, there’s some shifting before Caleb and Eodwulf’s hands meet, gently playing along her sensitive clit and entrance.

Working together, they bring her over the edge twice more before she begs for enough, gasping and shaking and whining happily in their arms. Rubbing tears from her eyes, she takes a moment to breathe, then spends a few minutes kissing each of them in turn.

As her heartbeat settles closer to a normal pace, she rolls over Caleb to put him between herself and Eodwulf, and shoves them at each other.  “Go, go entertain each other for a bit,  _fuck_ , that’s, fuck.”  She tells them, running her hands through her sweaty hair and stretching.

 

“Does this mean we win?”  Is all Caleb gets out before he’s pinned under the heavy desperate weight of Eodwulf, sending him into breathless laughter.

Eodwulf wraps his arms around Caleb and begins running his lips over the many dark bruises on his neck. Laughing and glancing up at her, he says;  “That’s why Astrid was so quiet.  I think that’s cheating, lovely.”

 

Astrid grins from where she’s moved to sit up against the pillows, watching them and waiting to be able to close her legs without hot zings running up through her body.  “He wasn’t complaining.”

“I was  _not_.”  Caleb tilts his head to bare the less-marked side of his neck and rolls his hips up to emphasize the request.

Eodwulf makes a choked noise at the sudden pressure, tips forward to mouth at whatever skin he can reach.  “Fuck, fuck alright, let’s--”  He wraps a hand around them, holding their cocks together and hissing with the contact.

 

Caleb’s whine cracks halfway through, he leans up to press a kiss to his hair.  Putting one arm around his waist and the other petting his head, he says “Shh, sh, I’m--I’m okay.  Take your time, lo--take your time.”  He closes his eyes against things he still can’t say, puts his attention back to soothing Eodwulf.  “Want me to..?”

Eodwulf pauses, then cups Caleb’s face in his hands and kisses him, alternating slow presses and biting his lip until he has another whining mess bucking against him.  Then he pulls away, laughing breathlessly, and starts peppering kisses across his face instead.  “You’re too good, so sweet, aren’t you, you darling handsome man.  Gods, please?  However you want, just--”

 

Caleb kisses him again, then looks to where they’re already tangled under the blankets, and wiggles closer, nudging his knee between Eodwulf’s.  “Come here,” he says quietly, lifting Eodwulf’s hand away from their dicks and up into his hair.  “If you want to, to keep marking me, I’d--I’d like that.  Otherwise, just, relax, yeah?”  He whispers, dropping a kiss to his shoulder and his hand back down.

He ignores himself again, slowly dragging just his fingertips down over Eodwulf’s cock and back up again.  Keeping his touch gentle, he lets his hand glide up and down the soft skin, palm catching to rub over his head and spread the wet from his tip down and over, squeezing just a bit harder on the drag down.

True to himself, Eodwulf has tightened his grip in Caleb’s hair, tugging his head to the side and back and sucking marks along his neck.  He’s shyer with his teeth than Astrid is, making up for it with precise nips that send shivers down his spine.

 

At this time, Astrid slides back over, pressing herself along Caleb’s back and reaching around him.  “Here,” she whispers to him, sliding her hand down to squeeze him briefly then cupping around Eodwulf’s balls, gently playing them between her fingers.  

Between the two of them, Eodwulf quickly spills over their hands, forehead pressed against Caleb’s shoulder and letting out quiet broken moans.  It’s the work of barely another minute to swap their focus and bring Caleb gasping over the same edge, leaving the two of them panting against each other.  

 

Astrid flicks her hand in a quick prestidigitation, cleaning all three of them off, then peels herself off of Caleb and grabs for the blankets.  Given freedom of movement, Caleb flops onto his back, pulling Eodwulf with him.  He blindly reaches out for Astrid, who laughs and flops down as well, pulling the blanket up with her.

The three of them all take their time to breathe, occasionally shifting for comfort, until they’ve all relaxed into the edge of dozing.

“Everyone good?  Nobody unduly sore?”  Asks Eodwulf then, his voice barely above a breath.

Two soft matching “mhm”s greet his question, making him smile and cuddle a little closer.

Somebody reaches out a hand; the other two take it.  Warm and tired and happily tangled, the three drift to sleep.

They don’t always share a room, but it usually works out well when they do.


End file.
